More About “Umbilical Cord Preservation"

Emma Bing: Hey mamas and mamas-to-be, usually I go to my mom for my pregnancy questions, but when it came to talking about cord blood banking, she had questions too. So when we had the chance to visit CBR Labs in Tucson, Arizona, we brought our questions with us. Happily, Kristen Swingle was on hand to answer them all. Take a look!

Heidi Murkoff: So you harvest the cord blood at birth, how long does it last in the freezer?

Kristen Swingle: There’s no indication that the sample should ever quote-on-quote expire...

H: ...Right...

K: ...As long as they’re stored under the proper conditions.

H: So I know the science is still emerging, but what is the success rate — so far — when it comes to these transplants or infusions?

K: There are a number of factors that impact the success rate. If you think of traditional transplant medicine, the science has shown that the ability for the stem cells to engraft with the genetically related stem cell sample, are far superior to samples that don’t have that genetic relationship.

H: Are there times when stem cells should not be used? For instance, in the case of a cancer?

K: Yes, I believe that the kind of benchmark is if the child comes down with a cancer — say within the first two to three years — the likelihood of that sample potentially being impacted by the same cancerous cell is possible. If the child’s over about the age of three years, then there are environmental factors that may have contributed to that child developing the cancer, and therefore the sample may be useable in that situation.

H: One question that a lot of moms have, and it’s an area of concern, is delayed clamping. Because they very much want to delay the clamping, so that their newborn baby derives all the benefits of all that rich blood from the umbilical cord. On the other hand, if you’re going to clamp the cord so that you can collect the cord blood sample, how do you do that?

K: Our recommendation to clinicians, who are performing the collection and to moms who are concerned about this, this is your decision. If you would like to delay clamping, please do not alter your practice of medicine simply to get that cord blood collection. We obviously like to receive it with the largest volume sample that we can possibly can, but that’s a personal choice to be able to determine whether or not you want to delay clamping.

K: Once that sample arrives here, we’ll process and store it. We actually concentrate the stem cells down into a smaller volume than what we received...

E: ...Yeah...

K: ...And that’s ultimately what we store long-term.

E: I hope that answered some of your questions about cord blood banking — mom and I definitely learned a lot. For more information, check out WhatToExpect.com.

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